It All Started with a Lie

Chapter 21

I peel my hand away from hers as subtly as I can but she notices, shifts in her spot with a whine and grabs my hand again. "Where are you going?"

I brush the hair out of her face and climb off the bed without stepping on her. "I have to go home. Bea called."

"Oh." She releases me and cuddles into her blanket. "Move me to the bed."

I knew the floor didn't help her back. I pick her up and she clings to blankets, rolling her head towards my chest as I set her on the bed. I tuck her in with the extra blanket and wonder how she is not burning under all them. "My keys are hanging by the door."

I don't understand what she means so she clarifies, "You can take my jeep. Keys are by the door."

I stutter but keep my mouth shut, figuring I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. "Okay."

I tuck in one final corner of the blanket, lingering beside her for a moment longer before turning to leave. She catches my wrist, and in her sleep dazed state reaches for the collar of my nonexistent shirt and when her hand comes up empty, I bow down to her anyway. In the most movement she has done since I woke her, she lifts her head just enough to press her pillowy lips to mine, and against them whispers, "Don't hurt my car."

I kiss her once more before she drops her head to the mattress. "I won't."

And I don't, but I do flip off the guy who almost hits her car as I am driving, and if my family weren't waiting on me, I might have done worse. I park on a different street and walk the rest of the way so Bea will not recognize the car and I figure I will tell her that a friend dropped me off, that I was too intoxicated to drive.

The house is pitch black when I make it inside which gives me time to change into a fresh set of clothes, ones that are not covered in blood. I find my sister in my room. She holds Sonny while he cries, his whole body trembling, and my heart drops. I suppose it is a good thing he is so upset, because it stops my sister from ripping me a new one at the sight of my face, free of the pink band aids but still stitched with purple thread. I take my spot beside them. "Maxon broke up with him," she whispers to me but Sonny hears and begins to choke on his tears.

I bite back my anger and rub my brothers back, offering him a tissue. He blows his nose, desperately trying to get the story out. Eventually he does, through gasps of breath, and tells us that Maxon broke up with him because he is leaving for college in a few months, two states away, and he can't do long distance. It is when he says that Maxon can't go without sex for the four months it will be before he visits back home that rage fills me and I try to keep my mind from wandering to ways to make Maxon's pain as great as my little brother. My sister rests her hand on my shoulder to calm my anger and I wonder if it is from years of comforting me or years of diffusing our fathers same temper. She was always the one to try to keep him from blowing a fuse; Sonny and I would only make things worse. We will never be the perfect sons, protectors of the household, true men as he put it. I was always too scrawny and Sonny was too flamboyant.

It is around an hour later that Sonny falls asleep in our laps after watching The Notebook. Bea and I stay up. She asks me about college and I give her the same updates I always do, that I love it, so that she will not worry. I don't tell her about the fights, and that I hate the frat so much it makes me sick, that the only good part of my life is coming home to them and the girl I'm sleeping with. And I ask her about Ryder—she hates long distance, and misses him terribly—and that leads into a new book she's reading, and that turns into a conversation of Alexandria, and how Bea thinks she's been seeing someone new because she hasn't been telling Bea about her sex life and she gets flustered every times the topic comes up. I try act casual, like I have no idea what she is talking about. When she asks my opinion I lie and say that I do not know Alexandria well enough to answer, like I have not mesmerized every inch of her skin, the wrinkles around her face when she laughs, how she scrunches her nose right before she sneezes. I am sure Bea must notice my guilt, but if she does, she says nothing.